Rand Paul's plan for the Pentagon: Stop spending millions on goldfish

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) has some ideas to help dig America out of debt, and for starters he thinks we should do away with all of our dang goldfish research.

Wait. Goldfish research?

If all goes as planned, the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts known
as sequestration will start on March 1, and members of Congress are
still trying to come up with an alternate solution to alleviate the
United States of its monetary woes. Sen. Paul, a long-time
proponent of cutting back on government spending, spoke to Fox News
this week about how he would fix the fiasco.

“In the military they have $5.2 million they spent on
goldfish — studying goldfish to see how democratic they were and if
we could learn about democracy from goldfish. I would give the
president the authority to go ahead and cut all $5 million in
goldfish studies,” Sen. Paul said during a Thursday
broadcast.

Later, the lawmaker blamed US President Barack Obama for the
current state of affairs, saying, “The sequester was his
idea.”

“He signed it into law and he needs to take
responsibility,” the senator said, “and he needs to act
responsibly and we’ve given him a list of cuts he could do without
laying off anybody.”

At the top of the list is axing programs like one documented in
a defense spending
report released back in November by Sen. Tom Coburn
(R-Oklahoma). In it, the lawmaker’s office lays out a plan for
saving the Pentagon $67.9 billion over ten years’ time by focusing
on “non-defense” cuts. Included in that battleplan is pulling the
plug on a recent $5.2 million fish study.

“Fish could show the nation how to overcome political
polarization and promote democracy, according to Pentagon-funded
research,” Coburn’s team wrote. “The Pentagon claims the
research provides ‘a better understanding of how individuals with
low stake impact achieve a democratic consensus’ and this ‘effort
supports Military Information Support Operations (MISO) mission
area.’” In learning as much, though, the Defense Department
blew through a $5.2 million grant from DARPA.

Earlier this month, Sen. Paul told RawStory that Congress is
often described as lacking bipartisanship. “That is not true. In
fact, there is plenty. Both parties have been guilty of spending
too much, of protecting their sacred cows, of back room deals in
which everyone up here wins, but every taxpayer loses.”
Hopefully now he has found some other common ground between
Democrats and Republicans: ending fish research.